Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

All right, I went in ahead and declared the Random Map: Corruption as the map for this game.

I added a downalod link for it in the first post.

What is this border mountain thing anyway? Haven't really played too many games on random maps.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Basically there are terrains for "Border Mountain" and "Mountain" with their own effects and castle types. IIRC dom3 random map generator generates only border mountains and not real mountains. But might've mistaken, this is mostly hearsay.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Yeah, I just took a look. All mountain provinces one the map are actually border mountains. If people perceive this as a problem, I could just edit the .map file to make them real mountains and upload that version to llamaserver.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Hello Everyone

I have started going through the process of getting you all those AI created monster Pretenders, but I might have hit a problem, which I've PM-ed Burnsaber about.

Basically, the problem seems to be that the AI doesn't always use up all the extra design points it gets at impossible level. Sometimes it uses them all, sometimes just a few, and sometimes none at all. And I feel this is leading to some real imbalance in the designs I am getting. I don't mind the weird and wonderful Gods it is creating, but I do mind if one awake Pretender has had 300 more design points pumped into it than another awake Pretender. I've double checked all the settings, and everything is as it should be.

So while I wait for Burnsaber to get back to me, does anyone have any insight into how the AI designs it's Pretenders, and in particular, does it always use up all the design points? It's not hard to see that AI Pretender designs are pretty random, but knowing that they would never NOT use all the design points would be helpful right now :)

As soon as this is sorted, I can get your choices out to you. Current timeframe is sometime tomorrow with any luck :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Is it obvious how many points have been spent, or do you have to work it out each time?

If the former, presumably you could make it spit out gods until you had 2 with full points spent? If not have to find another way, would take ages to calculate for each one

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Sometimes it is very obvious that hardly any point have been spent. One classic one I had was for MA Jotun, where the AI came up with...

Dorment Skratti
Dominion 4
Turmoil 2
Sloth 2
Cold 2
Death 1
Luck 2
Drain 1
and wait for it, the awesome magic paths of
Fire 4 Nature 2 Blood 4
Using just normal design options that leaves 492 unused points!!! Nice one Mr.Computer :) Any brave takers for this one?

If the Pretenders are awake, it is easy to check the points spent by re-creating that Pretender in it's Imprisoned form (which acts as the Impossible design point bonus). Here they have varied from a good 2 design points remaining, to the not so good 100+ points remaining.

As I said, I have no idea if this is just how the AI works, or if the problem is something else. One of the solutions I have suggested to Burnsaber is that I just keep creating Pretenders until every nation has at least 2 that have used up all the design points (or at least within 40 ie. A free scale). I have been doing the latter while waiting to hear from Burnsaber, think I'm over 50% of the required number of Pretenders at the moment.

One final thing, it is 250 extra design points the AI gets on impossible level isn't it?

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Actually, it did that "weak pretender" thing to me too, but only in once in a single test (out 3 or 4).

I guess it's just some weird AI behaviour.

If you have the time, it would be super if you could generate pretenders until you get two "uber" ones for each.

With uber, I don't specifically mean that there is a lot of points spent in to it. If it has strange paths & lots of power in them, it's probably somewhat fine. As long as all pretender are with 100 point range in cost, it's fine.

This game is kinda skewed on balance form the start. If someone gets seriously lucky with their pretender, we'll handle it the dom3 way. Gangbanging the lucky bastard, I mean

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Good to know it's just the AI doing stupid stuff as normal.

I will get onto generating the rest of the Pretenders first chance I get, which might be tonight, or failing that tomorrow afternoon.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I hope this doesn't mean you are keeping that crappy Jotunheim pretender as one of my choices :(

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Don't worry that one, and any other obvious candidates, will be firmly discarded to the scrap heap.

Oddly, some nations were proving harder to get good designs for than others, as some nations were coming up with good design (comparatively) after good design. Maybe there's a connection here to how they perform in SP games?

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I'm keenly anticipating my pretender, it's quite exciting not knowing what you are going to get. Hopefully this leads to some strategies not normally employed

Any chance we can keep pretenders altogether secret from other players? It would keep a nice edge to the game, not having any idea what you're going to run into

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Actually yeah, now that you mention it knowing what the other guy has would potentially give people a bit of an edge, unfairly in my opinion. Plus surprises are fun.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Well, the pretenders will be mostly secret. Because there is no way to make the mod .dm file secret (anyone can just open it and take a look easily), the base modded chassises will be available for all to view. However,

1) You do not know which chassis is for which nation, and

2) You do not know exactly what magic does the chassis possess and with what scales and level on dormancy.

For example, Calahan PM's everyone their choices, waits until he hears back from all of us and presents a mod with 10 modded pretenders are like this:

1. Red Dragon with F2W2D1

2. Great Sage with F3S3A1

3. Manticore with B2W3

4. Cyclops with E3F3

5. Skratti with B2E2N2W2D2

6. Cyclops with E3D3W1

7. Master Druid with B1N1D1W2F3 and domstr 5

8. Blue Dragon with W2, with path cost for additional magic 0

9. Monolith with E1D1N3S3

10. Titan with E3A3 and domstr 5 to begin with

Okay, now tell me which nation has what chassis to begin with? Can you tell if they're going to be awake with horrible scales or dormant? exact domstr?

This might fail a bit if someone uses a clearly nation restricted pretender (like the Son of the Fallen for Hinnom), but still you won't know the level of dormancy, nor any other details about it. Besides, because you are presented with 2 options, you can always opt to choose a "vanilla" pretender for that extra mystique.

What I meant with the gang-bang analogy was the true dom3-way. If some bless-giant nation hits on a imprisoned blesspretender and start taking up territory like madman, the other nations will probably react to the threat.

Yeah, this is what I'm hoping too. With a less than optimal pretender, you might need to look beyond the regular choices and try to devise another way to play the nation.

Perhaps I (EA Hinnom) will end up with 3-sloth in both of my builds and are unable to leverage the chariots/my sacreds for expansion. I'll probably then have to rely on the caveman guys at the beginning of my roster for expansion.

I'd also like to bring up the awake E1D9N9 manticore with somewhat bad scales from the example builds on page 2. It's not SC right from the start, althought it has pretty high fear due to death magic (+14 b*tches!) bonus. You need to leverage options and tinker with early game expansion strats to get the most out of him. It'snot obvious, but that pretender is really versatile and packs a bunch even with low-research. Consider this: Sleep cloud with +4 penetration and AoE 11! Heck, even sleep with +4 penetration right from the start could suprise someone trying to leverage sacred giant rush against you. Or just hit Summon Earthpower + Ironskin + Personal Regeneration + hold +hold + attack rear.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Hope to have contacted everyone with their Pretender design options before the end of today. Stay tuned :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Ok, I think I just about have 2 viable designs for each nation. I will type it all up neatly (rather than my scribbled short-hand versions) and PM you all seperately very soon.

But, @ Burnsaber - With regards the mod I have to make, what happens if two nations have the same Pretender chassis for their build? For example, one nation chooses a Cyclops with Water8, another a Cyclops with Fire8. I can't put F+W on the Cyclops because then both parties benefit from having base paths they shouldn't have. And at 80 points per new path, I doubt I could leave the Cyclops without a base magic path and still have it as a valid design for both players. And obviously this only gets worse if in the above example the two Cyclop's have non Earth paths like W8D8 F8N8.

Is this a problem, or am I missing something?

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Thanks for your work!

As to cyclops problem, isn't it possible to duplicate pretenders via mod?

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

In my code I supplied, all monster you make are new, they don't overwrite excisting ones.

So you just create two different new cyclopes. One with F and the other with W.

EDIT: Must.. Resist the urge.. to refresh PM page every 3 seconds..

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Thanks for the answer Burnsaber. Only two more nations to type up. And because I like you so much Burnsaber, I'll PM your choice to you last :D

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Hurray, it's done! :)

You should now hopefully all have received a PM from me with the two Pretender choices you have for this game (please PM me or post asap if you have not). I don't think I've made any mistakes in either typing, or in sending the correct choices to the correct players. But please accept my apologies in advance if I have made any errors, since a lot of cutting&pasting, PM-ing, typing lots of important numbers etc went on in the past 2 hours, so a little mistake here and there way well have crept in, and like I said, apologies if it has.

Once you have decided on your Pretender, please PM it to me. Also use my text in your reply if you can, as that way if you choose option 1 for example, I can easily see that we are talking about the same option. I have my own set of notes for this game, but doing it this way helps limit the chances of a mistake occuring from option 1 in my notes being different to the option 1 I sent you (while I'm pretty certain this hasn't happened, mistakes can creep in like I said).

I have tried to come up with two viable builds for each nation, and I have included a comment in your PM if there was any area of concern I had over your choices. Of course as Burnsaber has already stated, balance in this sort of game goes out the window, so some Pretenders will be a lot stronger than others.

I think I have a fairly good knowledge of the game, so I hope none of the Pretenders are completely crippling to their nation. But of course at the same time I haven't sat down and worked out a game winning strategy for each build I have offered in order to see how viable it was. That's your job! :) But if anyone does have any serious concerns about their choices, then please PM me, and I'm sure something can be sorted out.

So get those brains in gear folks, because it's unlikely you can just simply rely on Baalz's many excellent guides for this game :D

Now after all that I need a long rest, and a 24 hour break from Dominions (if my current games will let me that is. Damn speed merchants everywhere :()

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Ok, you have the options by calahan and want to test them out. But is the pretender too costy? Allow me to help! Copy this piece of code into some old mod.dm file you have lying around and edit it to make your pretender happen! (you can open & edit .dm files with a simple notepad or any equivalent)

Remember to activate CBM first, and after taht the mod you edited to include this piece. (so that all changes the CBM makes will be included in this new pretender)
However, once you are done with testing, I suggest you remove the code.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I'm actually pretty happy with the pretender I picked, but thought it might be interesting to post the potential pretenders that people didn't take and consider how the game might have gone. Here's the Sauromatia you're not going to have to fight:

Awake Vampire Queen F2 W9 E1 D9 B2

Dominion 3
Order 0
Production 1
Cold 3
Death 1
Misfortune 2
Drain 3

Man, I love the bless, that would have been naaaaasty with Sauro's sacred cavalry. Unfortunately they're cap only and a dominion of 3 would make unlocking that potential very difficult. As much fun as having an immortal slugger of such proportions (ironskin, fire shield, quicken self, life drain + fear & high defense) I think I'd spend the whole game lamenting the lack of dominion to use her in. And drain 3! That's not a scale you often see, particularly with heavy misfortune (gem loss events are common...yuck!) which also stacks with the death scale (pop loss events common...yuck!)

Certainly fits the description "AI made beast" to a T! :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

the pretender you won't be facing from the Arcosphale


Dormant Mother of Serpents A5 W6 D6 N4 B2

Dominion 5
Order 1
Production 2
Cold 1
Death 1
Luck 2
Drain 3

not a bad pretender with access to plenty of buffs to make her a fairly respectable SC by the time she wakes up. Only problem is the bless is not good enough to rely on my wind riders for expansion and the scales aren't good enough to keep me alive long enough to do deal with any of the giant rushers. plus production scales and drain 3 make uncle ferrosols philosophers cry.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Good thought Baalz, as many people as possible should post their rejects. Mine was

Dormant Crone W9 S9 D9 N6

Dominion 2
Order 0
Sloth 3
Cold 3
Growth 1
Misfortune 2
Drain 3

that's an awesome bless, but with dom 2 and cap only sacreds it would be essentially useless. Tack on misfortune without order and drain 3 on the nation with vaetti hags (and sloth 3 to limit expansion) and this choice is pretty much unplayable. Unlike baalz my other choice isn't great either, but it will service I think.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Heh, so far everyone has ditched drain-3 scales. Also, in retrospect a low dominion score might not be too terrible (outside of recruiting sacreds) because it looks like in general the AI isn't going with high dominions for you to push against.

Holy crap I'm glad that bless was attached to a tiny dominon Alpine Joe, it might even be worthwhile taking crap scales to bless giants thus...

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Those fighting Utgard won't be fighting

Awake Blue Dragon W9 D7

Dominion 3
Order 0
Production 2
Cold 3
Growth 1
Misfortune 3
Magic 1

Powerful early rush with the defence and fear, with reasonable scales, was a tough choice. Order 0 with Misfortune 3 is scary though. It is very intersting how low in Dom the pretenders all seem to be. It really does drop the bless advantage down a lot

Some interesting choices coming in so far. And some obvious ones ;) Must admit though I'd have been tempted to go with the triple blessed X9X9X9X6 for Jotunheim. I like the thought of having every sacred commander I had becoming an instant thug!

One rejected build that caught my eye big time was.....

Imprisoned Oracle
F9W9E9S9 !!!!

Dominion 4
Turmoil 3
Sloth 3
Heat 3
Death 1
Misfortune 1
Drain 2

Awful scales of course, but could actually have been worse. Plus this bless with someone like Sauro or Vanheim would have been insane! Would they actually lose even a single sacred before mid-game I wonder? But thankfuuly for you all, have a guess which nation pulled this out of the hat.......... MA Ulm :doh:

It was also interesting how some nations constantly came up with good or bad designs. At first I thought it was just random, but after rejecting 11 designs for MA Ulm (8 EA Arco, 7 EA Vanheim, 7 MA Jotun) I came to the conclusion that there must be something else at work. Since the main problem wasn't that designs were unsuitable for the nation (although that was a problem) it was the huge number of design points left over each time (which I mentioned before).

But some nations rolled their choices straight off the bat. Sauro was one of them, as the two choices I gave Baalz were the first two that were created. I also created a third (which I did for everyone) and again that was fine, and better than the one Baalz rejected. Although like I did with everyone, I only offered the first two designs that I thought were viable, and did not create a load and then simply choose the best two.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

you won't be facing vanheim with:

Dormant Arch Mage F9 A6 E9 S5 N3

Dominion 2
Turmoil 3
Cold 3
Death 2
Luck 2
Drain 1

did some field testing in sp, it just don't work well. but i don't wanna give away all my secrets, so i'll leave it at that.
Zlefin :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

i'd be curious to know what some of those other ones you rejected were calahan. how many points below were they and such.
mmm, lists.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

You won't be facing EA Hinnom with:

Dormant Lord of Rebirth E9 D3 N4 B4

Dominion 6
Order 3
Production 2
Heat 3
Growth 3
Misfortune 3
Drain 1

Note - This chassis produces gems in CBM

Let that sink in for a while.

I've never been so serious in my life, think about it. I'll wait..

.........


Yeah. I hit the god-damned jackpot of all possible +250 design point creations for EA Hinnom. E & N bless for the armored giants, production 2, order 3, even growth 3 for optimal bloodhunting!

That's the problem. It's too good.

I'm not playing this game to win it. That's just a goal not a purpose. I just know that I won't have much fun playing this design (my opponents won't either!). I want to have fun. My other design provides that, althought it's absolutely horrid.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Burnsaber, my first thought was "If that's the one he rejected, god help us the other one must be absolutely monsterous."

Dormant Master Druid F4 A2 E9 S1 D5 N6

Dominion 5
Turmoil 2
Production 2
Cold 2
Growth 1
Luck 0
Magic 0

Anyhow, that's my reject.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Still have some of the borderline candidates written down, although some of the obviously poor ones I didn't make a note of. (apart from our friend the 400+ points short Skratti I posted a few days ago). When my love of typing up a few dozen different Pretender designs returns, I will do so and post them up for those intereseted.

@ All - Most of you have PM-ed me your choices, but noticing one or two have selected their Pretender, posted their rejects, but have not yet PM-ed me their choice (unless they got lost it the forum mail). Would still appreciate a PM back from everyone though confirming their choice. Helps rubber stamp everthing :)

Edit: I have so far had PM's from the following players stating their choice. So my thanks for doing that goes to...

Burnsaber
zlefin
Drager
Falkor
Ferrosol
Alpine Joe
Baalz
Fakeymcfake

which leaves only the following left to decide.....

atul
Unoptimized

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Sorry, got home only an hour ago, currently just trying to figure out whether one of the designs is actually doable...

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Okay, this LA T'ien Ch'i pretender is not seen either:

Awake Mother of Rivers W9 E2 D8

Dominion 8
Turmoil 2
Production 2
Cold 3
Death 1
Luck 1
Drain 3

Bless is nice, free gems are nice, awake titan chassis is nice, domstr 8 is good for pushing dominion, but... Turmoil 2 Cold 3 Death 1 for no money and Drain 3 for no research... Gah.

Not that the second one would be more survivable either. :p

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I rejected this pretender for Nifelheim:

Awake Enchantress F2 A6 W4 E6 S4 N2 B4

Dominion 3
Order 0
Production 3
Cold 3
Growth 2
Misfortune 2
Drain 1

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

you should have played it burnsaber!! in fact you still should.. it's not like we'd dogpile you or anything..

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I am now only waiting on Unoptimized to get back to me with a Pretender choice. I have sent another PM in case the original one didn't get delivered.

I hope it won't take me too long to get the mod created once I get all the Pretenders in, although apologies in advance if I have problems since I have never done any Dominions modding before. I might have time to start the mod tonight (since I only need all the Pretenders to complete the mod, but can start it without knowing them all) but failing that I won't have much free time again until Monday evening (GMT). Edit: Having just read what I wrote above, I realise I can go ahead and create two mods, and just use whichever one corresponds to Unoptimized's choice.

But I hope those mighty AI created beasts can be unleashed by the end of Monday at the latest :) (provided I hear back from Unoptimized of course).

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Ok, at this moment I can't see any reason why I won't be able to get this mod finished by the end of the day. Apart from having not heard back from Unoptimized yet that is.

@ Burnsaber - Not sure what you want to do about Unoptimized. Checked his profile page, and it says he has not visited the forums since 12th June. (I sent the Pretenders out after this time). Could push on ahead without him, or if one less player affects the map balance, you could advertise for a replacement. The replacement could have a choice of two nations, as I did Pretenders for Illuminated One / MA T'ien C'hi without realising he had dropped out in the meantime. Or I could generate two new Pretenders for the replacement's nation of choice. Pretenders for one nation shouldn't take me that long to get (cue for a curse to enter). Purely an admin decision though, which I will leave to you :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I'll give unoptimized 12 hours to respond.

After that, I'll open recruitment for 24 hours for either MA ULM or T'ien C'hi. If no one takes that bait, we'll just play with 9 players with a slighly smaller map.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Considering how Unoptimized managed to post in the forums yesterday, I've inclined to give him some time. I've sent him a PM, asking him to show some signs of life regarding this game.

Should he fail to respond in 24 hours, I'll start looking for a sub.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I have now heard back from Unoptimized, so will finish up the mod when I get home from work. Hope to squeeze in some play-testing as well to make sure it works ok.

Almost kick-off time folks :) and many thanks for your patience.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

I have finished the mod, and it's all ready to go apart from one small potential problem that I want to run by Burnsaber. As soon as I hear back from him with either a solution or a nod in the directon of 'it doesn't matter', then I can post the mod for the game to start.

Many thanks to everyone for all the kind words in their PM replies. I like to consider myself a generally helpful person, and was more than happy to help out here so that everyone can enjoy a unique type of game. Also managed to learn a bit about modding in the process, so I've benefitted from all this as well :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Awesome, thanks Calahan, can't wait :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

The mods required should be attached to this post. I unfortunately had to make a very slight change to the CBM mod as well, which was the final problem I wanted to run by Burnsaber, so you will need this altered CBM mod as well now. Didn't want to do this, but the alternative might have had some effects on late game (which may well have been good effects actually, but not my call) as Seraphs could well have been relegated down the wish list a bit!

The two mods are called...
- Sentient Machines
- Sentient Machines CBM 1.5

Not ideal having two mods, but it seems to work ok (although only quickly tested). The two mods could easily be integrated, but that would have taken me some time since I would have been tip-toeing around carefully in fear of breaking some of CBM's changes. So thought it best to use two mods so the game can start asap.

I'm guessing you will also need the single age mod. which I think this is the link for.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34265

But I'm sure Burnsaber will put everything you need on the status page now that the mod is finished.

Please shout out (post or PM) as soon as possible if you have any problems creating your Pretenders. I've checked that the creation of each Pretender is possible with these mods active, but I might have gone blind and not noticed one had Earth 6 instead of Earth 7 for example. So please report any problems you find, as I've tried to be as tight as possible with spare design points remaining with each build (since that makes it harder to know the magic paths on other Pretenders)

Thanks again everyone, and best of luck to all :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Ok. I combined the CBM, llamabanners and the Calahan's modified pretenders into a single mod and attachted it to the first post.

I'll put up the game on llamaserver within the next 12 hours. Hopefully we will be able to start on friday or saturday.

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

Thanks Burnsaber. You combined the mods 10x faster than I could have :)

Re: Sentient Machines - Closed. [Creating Pretenders]
 

OK, game is up on the Llamaserver. See the link.

Be absolutely sure that you have made the pretender exactly as in the PM sent by Calahan.

http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo....tient_Machines

Send in your AI pretenders! Let this descent into madness begin!

Re: Sentient Machines - [Sending pretenders]
 

I'm going to be out of touch this weekend so depending on when everyone turns in their pretenders you may have to wait on me for the first turn. I should be able to have everything sorted sometime in the afternoon EST on monday.

Re: Sentient Machines - [Sending pretenders]
 

C'mon peoples, pretender creation really shouldn't be too time consuming for this one ;)

Re: Sentient Machines - [Sending pretenders]
 

Ooo, all in.

Can we start the game, can we? Even if the first turn is with longer host time.

Re: Sentient Machines - [Sending pretenders]
 

Game Started!